The permanent patch is for an exploit known as CVE-2013-3893, which had the capability to work its way into all supported versions of Internet Explorer. Microsoft announced the existence of the vulnerability in September and released a downloadable "Fix It" tool until the permanent patch was ready.

"The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a customer views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer," Microsoft's Dustin Childs wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the same rights as the current user running Internet Explorer."

The new update with the permanent patch, dubbed MS13-080, fixes 10 issues within Internet Explorer.

In addition to patching the Internet Explorer vulnerability, Microsoft also issued three other critical bulletins and four important ones. All of the bulletins together target 26 different vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, .NET Framework, Office, Silverlight, and more.